Music Sales Continue Their Decline in 2006 as Major Labels Ignore HD DVD and Blu-ray

By: Jerry Del Colliano

The RIAA has released their 2006 sales report for recorded music, and the downward trend continues for yet another year. Overall sales are down 0.6 percent to 12.27 billion, which is slightly misleading because the RIAA is now counting the lucrative, new market of cell phone ringtones in their overall sales numbers. Without ringtones in the mix, overall music sales slipped even further in 2006. The low-resolution, audio-only Compact Disc format continues to age, leaving today's kids buying video oriented DVDs, high-definition video games and all sorts of content for their handheld devices such as, cell phones, PDAs and beyond.

While downloaded music boomed in 2006, with 174.5 percent growth, the more profitable, physical discs, including CDs, DualDiscs, SACD, DVD-Audio and vinyl fell in sales 7.9 percent to 11.9 billion dollars. Amazingly, or not so amazingly when you consider the total lack of label support for high-resolution music, the total sales of DVD-Audio and SACD combined reached a measly 1,000,000 units versus 1,300,000 units for records sold on vinyl.

The music business, now led by Apple Computer, has taken the path of least resistance when it comes to selling music. This basically means an abandonment of selling music by the album. In doing so, they have tossed their business model in to a free fall. While music executives have been complaining of illegal downloads for ten years now, they have done little to sign landmark, new artists that define a new generation's music. Instead they rely on selling their back catalog as singles, in low-resolution, downloadable formats. Perhaps looking at releasing music with collateral video, surround sound and other goodies on one of the HD DVD or Blu-ray formats would be worth consideration, as the discs get $20 or more from early adopters, and come complete with HDCP copy protection and one cable (HDMI) connectivity. Imagine an album mixed in surround sound being played back with HD video content on one of the 2,000,000 HDTV sets sold per month, and you can see a business model that could replace the rotting carcass known as the Compact Disc.

Re: Music Sales Continue Their Decline in 2006 as Major Labels Ignore HD DVD and Blu-

Ken,
FWIW,
I'm on the brink with the HD DVD "stuff""...........more for audio than video. What player are you using & what concerts did you listen to. I was an early adopter for the SACD/DVD-A failure [bought an Integra universal player]; music was OUTSTANDING esp. DSOTM....so I AM waivering!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: Music Sales Continue Their Decline in 2006 as Major Labels Ignore HD DVD and Blu-

Bob,

An easier question might be which players don't I have!

I have had a Toshiba HD-XA1, and now have the HD-XA2 for HD DVD. I also have the Samsung BDP-1200 (sold my BDP-1000) and Sony BDP-S1. All of them are stellar for audio, especially when mated to a pre/pro or receiver that can do HDMI 1.2 or better as you can send uncompressed 5.1 PCM to your system. I recently got a chance to A-B this during my review of the Marantz SR8001 receiver (coming soon), and I must say the difference is HUGE!!! I can't wait for the pre/pro world to catch up (unfortunately for us extremists the wait is longer....)

The concert HD DVD/Blu-rays I own so far are U2 Rattle and Hum on HD DVD, the New Oleans Concert (Blu-ray) and my favorite NIN Beside You In Time (Blu-ray).